To Owe Someone, To Know Someone
by sugarweregoindownswingin
Summary: Was Orochimaru a good man? Mark one. Yes No (crossposted from ao3)


Anko has nightmares.

That's not strictly accurate, technically. She has _nightmare_.

Even that isn't strictly accurate technically. She has one nightmare, that happens every what, three-ish? Four-ish? Weeks. More often, if she's just come back from a mission, and less if she's riding the desk for a few weeks straight.

This is the way the nightmare goes:

She's in Orochimaru's old classroom, that dismal dreary place that only ever had four desks at most in it, and Anko is always sitting in the one closest to the door. She's always an adult in her dreams, never the child she really was when she was there and competing for Orochimaru's attention and affection and praise, praise above all else that she could gain from the man. Even though she's always an adult in these dreams, she never feels uncomfortable in the desk- her knees don't bash against it like they probably would if she were really there, and the chair suits her perfectly instead of being built for a six-year-old contestant.

Old Ibiki is always standing up front, in front of the chalkboard that Orochimaru would sometimes scratch his fingernails down when he wasn't writing complex lessons on chakra theory on them. He's got that long cane that he uses partly for intimidation and partly for supporting his brittle old legs, and he's tapping his foot against the floor.

"Only one question today, class," he says, in that deep growl that he uses for the first day for the chuunin apprenticing in T&I. "One question, true or false. You have all the time you need. Begin."

Then, there's a paper on Anko's desk, and it doesn't even have a line for her name, just the single question that Ibiki promised.

_Was Orochimaru a good man? Mark one._

_Yes_

_No_

And Anko stares at the poster and doesn't know how to answer.

_Was_ Orochimaru a good man? That should be an easy question, the kind of easy question that Orochimaru used to use to trip up his recruits. But it's not, and Anko can't explain why it's not, in the dreamy classroom of Orochimaru's. It had always smelled like scales and snakes and rot, but in her dreams it smells like the forest, the scent of leaves thick in the air, a natural world that Orochimaru would never tolerate.

"What's wrong, Anko-chan?" Ibiki asks, with Orochimaru's voice. "Are you having trouble answering the question?"

"No, sensei," Anko says, and she isn't sure if she's talking to Ibiki or to Orochimaru.

"You'd better hurry, then," Ibiki says, with Orochimaru's voice. "All the other children are finished. You don't want to go back to the orphanage, do you?"

"No, sensei," Anko whispers.

"Good girl," Ibiki says, with Orochimaru's voice. He pats her head and vanishes from the dreamscape.

Anko continues staring at her test, and when she wakes up- test inevitably incomplete, punishment inescapable- she's in a cold sweat, and her apartment smells like snakes.

Because it is hard for Anko to say whether or not Orochimaru is a good man. He isn't, obviously, because of everything he did to the Uchiha boy and everything he did to Konoha and to all the people he murdered and all the jounin he traumatized and all the experiments that he left to wander the world.

But he was the only adult who ever cared about _her_, about Mitarashi Anko, one of about ten thousand resident war orphans in Konoha's overcrowded orphanages after the war, a nothing girl who was only notable because she was too brash and too loud and too boyish and too proud and too annoying to ever be a great jounin, and then Orochimaru had seen her and he had taken her from the orphanage and he had taught her so much and he had called her _good girl_ and _clever girl_ and had told her that she reminded him of Jiraiya, and no one else had ever remembered her face, much less been reminded of someone when they saw her.

But he had hurt her, too, broken her fingers when she couldn't form the hand signs quickly enough and had cut her long and deep on the back when she failed to guard well enough during sparring matches and had more than once fed her poisons when he had eaten with her.

But some deep, traitorous part of Anko's mind asks if that didn't make her a better ninja. Sure, he broke her fingers, but that made them more flexible and brought the signs easier. Sure, he cut her long and deep and _painful_ down her back, but that made sure that she never forgot to guard her back in fights. And sure, he fed her poison that probably would have made the Sage of Six Paths himself feel a little woozy, but she could identify whether or not rice was poisoned just based off of the sheen of one single grain. Wasn't she a better shinobi thanks to Orochimaru? Not just a kunoichi, not a soft, feminine spy, infiltrating through flowers and fashion and sweet pursuits that lead to sex and a poisoned man; but a _shinobi_, trained by one of the Sannin, invoking qualities of the slyest ninja and brashest ninja in one, a shinobi naturally like the Toad Sage and trained by the Snake Sannin, skilled in taijutsu and in poisons and in strategy and chakra theory and chakra manipulation with chakra pools nearly the size of Jiraiya's to back her up. The cream of Orochimaru's crop, his proudest creation that could still think for herself.

Does that make Orochimaru a good person?

If anyone asked, Anko would say no. Nothing that Orochimaru has done for good can undo the things he has done out of his selfish pursuit for knowledge, can undo the things he did to that Uchiha boy, can undo his murders or his experiments or his betrayals. He is a bad man, and he's done bad things to everyone that Anko can think of, including herself, and she had to be rescued from him by the sandaime, how could anyone believe that Orochimaru is a good person?

But didn't he care for Anko? Didn't he keep asking for her to come back with him? Was that a heartless bid to gain another ally, one of Konoha's most powerful jounin, or did he actually want her back? That's impossible for Anko to tell. For all that Ibiki has tried to teach her, she has no idea how to read the emotions in a person's voice- it's all inarguable adjectives, the yondaime's kid is _loud fast disorganized_, the Uchiha boy is _slow quiet deep_, the left-behind of the first surviving Team 7 is _quiet controlled soft-then-loud_, and Anko doesn't know what any of it means. Orochimaru never put much stock into emotions, his voice always _steady slow sibilant_, the same tone and pitch and tempo whether he was lecturing about the history of shinobi or snapping Anko's pinky finger into a right angle.

In the nightmare, Orochimaru's voice is manic, the sound of his battle with the sandaime. Not the steady sound that had bandaged Anko's cuts and iced her bruises and softly informed her of the difference between shell shock and breaks from reality following combat.

Was Orochimaru a good man?

When Anko wakes up from her nightmares, sweating despite her apartment being kept cold to the point of discomfort so that no snakes want to come in, she lies in her bed and stares up at her ceiling, where the fan spins so quickly that it wobbles on its axis, going _tik, tik, tik, tik_ like a metronome, and she tries to answer the question. Was Orochimaru a good man?

No. Objectively, no. From an outside observer, no. From your average citizen of Konoha, no. From one of his experiments, no. From anyone who fought him, no. From anyone whose body he wanted for himself, no.

From anyone who wasn't his favorite student, from anyone who wasn't the first to grasp the concepts he was talking about, from anyone who didn't defeat all her opponents in spars, from anyone who didn't sign his same summoning contract, from anyone who he molded into his own image?

From anyone who wasn't one of ten thousand war orphans that was only ever seen by him?

No.

But the one lucky little girl who won his attention and affection and praise doesn't know how to answer, truthfully.


End file.
